Gratton? I wouldn't mind it, worst case is you waive him again if he doesn't pan out. We have cap space a lpenty until Gonchar is back and even then you waive Boucher or Gill if Gratton is fitting in. Just this year at $1.5 million and he can play 4th line until Zigomanis is ready to come back.

DelPen wrote:Gratton? I wouldn't mind it, worst case is you waive him again if he doesn't pan out. We have cap space a lpenty until Gonchar is back and even then you waive Boucher or Gill if Gratton is fitting in. Just this year at $1.5 million and he can play 4th line until Zigomanis is ready to come back.

At the start of the season, I would have agreed with you. In fact, I posted that they should pick him up. Now, not so much.

I wanted Gratton because iof his faceoff ability and thought he could center the third line with Staal moving to wing with Malkin. But then three things happened.

1. They got Z-man. Thus, no need for another good faceoff guy.2. Staal struggled on Malkin's wing.3. The third line, with Staal centering, has been awesome.

There is now no reason to move Staal to wing. And that eliminates the need for Gratton.

as required by the customs of the board, i am required to ask should we go after him?

he was on our radar prior to the season?

1. The Pens have no longer term cap space (i.e., only until Gonch returns).

2. Vrbata makes Satan and Sykora look consistent.

3. I can think of 3 years and 9M reasons why not.

4. While nobody may want to discuss it, the Pens are about the enter cap ****. When the cap for 2009-2010 was anticipated to be close to 60M, the problems weren't as great. But, now, the talk is that the cap will drop to the 54-55M range. The Pens now have about 43M committed to 6 forwards, 5 defensemen, and MAF for next season. Staal, Talbot, and Gogo are RFA's. Even if all three sign for less than expected and the reserves come for 2M combined, I estimate that the Pens may have about 4-5M total for 4 wingers for Sid and Geno. When you're dealing with that kind of situation (where even say trading Whitney for a younger defenseman making 1M frees up only 3M), you cannot afford to take flyers on the Radim Vrbata's of the NHL.

JoseCuervo wrote:I like vrbata and thought the pens should go after him during the offseason, but with satan and fedko already on the team, vrbata doesn't bring anything special other than a 3 mil cap hit

I agree with you. I actually thought at the time that 3 years $9MM was a very fair contract, guess not...

DelPen wrote:Gratton? I wouldn't mind it, worst case is you waive him again if he doesn't pan out. We have cap space a lpenty until Gonchar is back and even then you waive Boucher or Gill if Gratton is fitting in. Just this year at $1.5 million and he can play 4th line until Zigomanis is ready to come back.

At the start of the season, I would have agreed with you. In fact, I posted that they should pick him up. Now, not so much.

I wanted Gratton because iof his faceoff ability and thought he could center the third line with Staal moving to wing with Malkin. But then three things happened.

1. They got Z-man. Thus, no need for another good faceoff guy.2. Staal struggled on Malkin's wing.3. The third line, with Staal centering, has been awesome.

There is now no reason to move Staal to wing. And that eliminates the need for Gratton.

DelPen wrote:Gratton? I wouldn't mind it, worst case is you waive him again if he doesn't pan out. We have cap space a lpenty until Gonchar is back and even then you waive Boucher or Gill if Gratton is fitting in. Just this year at $1.5 million and he can play 4th line until Zigomanis is ready to come back.

At the start of the season, I would have agreed with you. In fact, I posted that they should pick him up. Now, not so much.

I wanted Gratton because iof his faceoff ability and thought he could center the third line with Staal moving to wing with Malkin. But then three things happened.

1. They got Z-man. Thus, no need for another good faceoff guy.2. Staal struggled on Malkin's wing.3. The third line, with Staal centering, has been awesome.

There is now no reason to move Staal to wing. And that eliminates the need for Gratton.

Gratton on Sid's LW?

Gratton is 18 games 0-2 with 16 shots...He's 4th line fodder at this time...

as required by the customs of the board, i am required to ask should we go after him?

he was on our radar prior to the season?

1. The Pens have no longer term cap space (i.e., only until Gonch returns).

2. Vrbata makes Satan and Sykora look consistent.

3. I can think of 3 years and 9M reasons why not.

4. While nobody may want to discuss it, the Pens are about the enter cap ****. When the cap for 2009-2010 was anticipated to be close to 60M, the problems weren't as great. But, now, the talk is that the cap will drop to the 54-55M range. The Pens now have about 43M committed to 6 forwards, 5 defensemen, and MAF for next season. Staal, Talbot, and Gogo are RFA's. Even if all three sign for less than expected and the reserves come for 2M combined, I estimate that the Pens may have about 4-5M total for 4 wingers for Sid and Geno. When you're dealing with that kind of situation (where even say trading Whitney for a younger defenseman making 1M frees up only 3M), you cannot afford to take flyers on the Radim Vrbata's of the NHL.

The 2009-10 cap was discussed at length on the Satellite Hot Stove on Hockey Night in Canada this past weekend, and the notion that the cap may come down is not a certainty at all. In fact, Pierre Lebrun mentioned that the cap may actually go up again, but by a more modest $1-2 million or so.

I forget all of the details, but the cap for next year is at least in part determined by league revenues for this season. A significant portion of those revenues have already been accounted for (season ticket money, initial television revenues, etc).

Lebrun said if there's a season when the cap does come down, it'll likely be 2010-11, as the 2009-10 revenues (revenues which influence the 2010-11 cap) will be the first ones to be affected by the slumping economy for a full year.